Navy discovers centuries-old Spanish ship buried in sand
By Associated Press
June 2, 2006

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Navy construction crews have unearthed a rare Spanish
ship that was buried for centuries under sand on Pensacola's Naval Air
Station, archaeologists confirmed.
The vessel could date to the mid-16th century, when the first Spanish
settlement in what is now the United States was founded here, the
archaeologists said.
But the exposed portion looks more like ships from a later period
because of its iron bolts, said Elizabeth Benchley, director of the
Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida.

"There are Spanish shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay," Benchley said. "We have
worked on two - one from 1559 and another from 1705. But no one has
found one buried on land. This was quite a surprise to everybody."
Construction crews came upon the ship last month while rebuilding the
base's swim rescue school, destroyed during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The exposed keel of the ship juts upward from the sandy bottom of the
pit and gives some guess of the vessel's form. Archaeologists estimated
the rest of the ship is buried by about 75 feet of sand.

During initial work to determine the ship's origin, archaeologists found
ceramic tiles, ropes and pieces of olive jars. The settlement was
founded in 1559; its exact location is a mystery. The Spanish did not
return until more than a century later in 1698 at Presidio Santa Maria
de Galve, now the site of the naval station.

The French captured and burned the settlement in 1719 but handed
Pensacola back to Spain three years later. Hurricanes forced the Spanish
to repeatedly rebuild.

The Navy plans to enclose the uncovered portion of the ship, mark the
site and move construction over to accommodate archaeological work,
officials said.

"We don't have plans to excavate the entire ship," Benchley said. "It's
going to be very expensive because it's so deeply buried, and we would
have to have grant money," she said.